Happy New Year!

It’s Labor Day, which is our little family’s New Year’s Eve. Each year, as the summer winds down and the new school year approaches, we start to make plans for the next 12 months: what our daily schedule will be like, what things we are going to try to accomplish, what changes we need to make.

I like the new schedule. We have made some very concrete plans for getting certain rooms in our home decluttered and cleaned up, for exercising together as a family, and for having Family Fun Time.

Just like new school shoes, these changes don’t fit perfectly at first. David wants me to make our new schedule accessible to him as a web document, since he knows that he is going to have trouble, at first, remembering which days we are going to the gym, when Quinland has soccer practice, and when he is the one who is supposed to start dinner. As for me, I worry more about having too much structure in place, about David and Quinland being upset with me if things interfere with the schedule. They both like to know what is supposed to happen when, and if something throws a monkey wrench in their expectations, they don’t like it. (“Things” often come up in my life, so this concern is warranted.) If I am honest with myself, I know that a) they both work better with a list and a schedule, and b) I want them to work better, so c) I am the one who is really pushing for the schedule. I know that I want the discipline of the schedule for myself as well.

{Clutter} released: I mentioned late this evening that I hadn’t gotten rid of anything yet today. Quinland said, “Well, you got rid of Gina.” (My sister left tonight to go back home to California; I did not get rid of her!) I decided to tackle the magazines, but after an hour, I had gotten rid of two. I guess that’s something…

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2 thoughts on “Happy New Year!”

I really like the idea of treating Labor Day, as new years, and will have to erm, borrow the idea. I work in Education, so that’s about right, the new (school) year starts today, but I don’t do all that personal reflect and plan work I usually do around new years. Good luck with your plans!

Thanks, Allison! Another thing that makes the school year make more sense for my family is that we all have birthdays in the fall, so we tend to group the ideas together: 2011/2012 = 7th grade = the year Q is 13, and so on.

So far so good on the schedule! We got invited to Lynette’s for dinner, so no one cooked, but except for meals everything went as planned. One day down, 365 to go!